(The Week) – Obama commutes sentences of 46 prisoners

President Obama announced in a video released Monday that he will grant clemency to 46 prisoners. “These men and women were not hardened criminals,” the president said. “But the overwhelming majority had been sentenced to at least 20 years,” many for “non-violent drug offenses.”

“Their punishments didn’t fit the crime,” the president said. “And if they’d been sentenced under today’s laws, nearly all of them would have already served their time.”

Obama has now commuted 89 prisoners — the most since Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.